Bai Yuchan白玉蟾

Style & Daoist names

Ge Changgeng, styled Ruhui, also Baisou, self-styled Haiqiongzi, Hainan Weng, and Wuyi Sanren, Perfected Man Ziqing Mingdao

Period

Southern Song

Dates

1194 — c. 1229 (one account gives 1289)

School

Southern Lineage of the Golden Elixir (Nanzong)

Role

Internal Alchemy MastersFifth Patriarch of the Southern Lineage (Nanzong)Patriarch of Thunder RitesPoetCalligrapher and Painter

Birthplace

Qiongzhou (present-day Qiongshan, Hainan)

Places of activity

Lesser Grotto 16: Mount Wuyi, Mount Longhu (Dragon and Tiger Mountain), Mount Luofu

Life

Bai Yuchan, originally surnamed Ge, given name Changgeng, whose ancestral home was Minqing, Fujian, was born in Qiongzhou. Renowned as a child prodigy, he later abandoned the path of the civil examinations for the Dao, studying under Chen Nan (Chen Niwan) and receiving the transmission of the golden elixir and Thunder Rites. He traveled widely through the mountains of Jiangnan, the two Guang provinces, and Fujian and Zhejiang, and in his later years settled at the Zhizhi Hermitage on Mount Wuyi, where together with Peng Si, Liu Yuanchang, and others he formed a religious community, establishing ordination altars and transmitting registers — giving organized religious form for the first time to the Southern Lineage of internal alchemy, which had descended through a single line of transmission since Zhang Boduan. He is therefore venerated as the actual founder of the Southern Lineage as an organized school, and as the last of the Southern Five Patriarchs. Bai Yuchan's learning combined Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism; he advocated the joint cultivation of Nature and Life, entering through 'refining the self,' and held that the essentials of internal alchemy lay in 'spirit is fire, and qi is the medicine.' He also fused in Shenxiao Thunder Rites, proposing that Thunder Rites are rooted in internal alchemy — 'refine within to form the elixir, apply without to form the ritual method' — making him the key figure in the union of ritual method (fa) and the alchemical Way (dao). His poetry, prose, calligraphy, and painting were all highly renowned, and his writings are collected in the Haiqiong Bai Zhenren Yulu and the Haiqiong Yuchan Xiansheng Wenji, among others; he was once summoned to court during the reign of Emperor Lizong of Song.

Contributions & Influence

• Organized the Southern Lineage's religious community, establishing ordination altars and the system of register transmission, turning the Southern Lineage from a single line of transmission into an organized school
• Systematically expounded the three essentials of internal alchemy — essence, qi, and spirit — advocating refining the self and governing qi through spirit
• Fused Shenxiao Thunder Rites with internal alchemy, proposing that Thunder Rites are rooted in the alchemical Way
• Left a large body of poetry, prose, and recorded sayings, which became the principal texts of Southern Lineage doctrine

Works

• Collected Works of Bai Yuchan
• Collected Writings of Master Haiqiong Yuchan
• Ten Books on the Cultivation of Perfection (in part)
• Shangqing Anthology
• Wuyi Anthology
• Yulong Anthology
• Nine Essentials of Daoist Ritual

Legends

Legend holds that he was a child prodigy who could recite the Nine Classics at age nine and sat for the Boy Prodigy examination at twelve; it is also said that he refined the elixir and attained the Dao at the Zhizhi Hermitage on Mount Wuyi, and could summon thunder and command spirits, ultimately 'dissolving into transcendence' at Haifeng. These accounts appear largely in later hagiography and are legendary.